Tag: Jazz
In an effort to cover more releases on a weekly basis, BeatCaffeine will kick off the ‘Weekly Record Rundown’ series, which will focus primarily on LPs, EPs, and 7″ featuring new music. We will still do single dedicated features on full-length albums, reissues and compilations during the week, however this allows (hopefully) more coverage for the many great records that continue to come out over a month.
Legendary UK DJ Paul Murphy and his superb Jazz Room Records continue with the onslaught of impressive releases in 2024 with a “must-own” reissue of the holy grail LP, titled Positive Energy, Volume 1, from New York-born saxophonist, clarinetist and flautist Ronnie April.
In an impressive collaborative effort, rising Italian collective Aura Safari and legendary Finnish musician Jimi Tenor have teamed up on a brilliant new cosmic jazz-funk album on the Hell Yeah label, titled Sensory Blending.
Bristol-based quintet The Jazz Defenders returns following 2022’s acclaimed LP King Phoenix and a number of notable 7inch singles with a superb new full-length on Haggis Records, titled Memory In Motion.
Multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer Lucas Arruda, who’s from the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo (near Rio de Janeiro), has returned with his fourth and arguably best album to date for the superb French label Favorite Recordings, titled Ominira.
This Saturday, April 20th is Record Store Day 2024. I believe this international record store celebratory day has reverted back to just one day annually, which to me makes the most sense. Over the last several years, this has become the prime day in which many labels release limited-edition or never-before-released vinyl albums, singles, compilations and reissues. Sometimes it feels more like “record label day” or “new vinyl collectables day”, given how it’s evolved. While the day usually attracts many hardcore collectors, shops also often see a large influx of casual music fans and even a few that might be buying their first record. Regardless, these are all great things.
Mad About Records is back at it, in what has already been a very active year for the Portugal-based label, with a welcomed official reissue release of the extremely obscure 1981 jazz-funk album from a Connecticut-based quintet called Quintessence.
For the latest release on Paul Murphy’s Jazz Room Records, he revisits the obscure self-titled full-length debut from Danish jazz fusion group Ariel, which includes the massive jazz dance gem, “The Girl With Three Faces”.
Manchester-based saxophonist Nat Birchall, who has released a string of incredible recordings in which he’s playing all the instrumentation (Songs of the Ancestors, Afro Trane, The Infinite, and Ancient Africa), has returned with a full 7-piece ensemble for his latest offering, titled New World.
As a much-anticipated follow-up to their 2022 compilation debut, Dutch vinyl shop Klinkhamer Records and owner Michel Veenstra have teamed up again with London’s BBE Records to release Volume 2, featuring another superb selection of obscure eclectic gems from the 70s and 80s that you will most likely not hear anywhere else.
